One of the great joys of book publishing is connecting with people around the world who are inspired, delighted, or interested in past projects.
I was contacted by an editorial staffer from a Swiss publication. She saw one of the photos I took in Guatemala City for “WAR: The Afterparty.” The photo, the journey, and the story of the CIA overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacob Arbenz are powerful memories. Guatemala was the first stop on the trip around the world for the Afterparty project and the first chapter in the book.
I was privileged to license the photo for their use.
We have two brilliant new interns who are furiously working through our backlog of interviews, transcribing, fact checking, looking up historical context. As we get up to date, we will provide deeper backgrounders, and, of course, you’ll get to meet them though their bylines and bios. This interview was transcribed by Kayley Ingalls.
Kayley received her BA in International Studies in 2012 from the University of Chicago. Though her coursework includes African Politics, the Modern Middle East, and the Politics of Islam, she wrote her thesis on fairy tales and their use as a vehicle for discussing the Holocaust. A good-natured stickler for grammar, she enjoys taking the odd class on mechanics and usage. Since graduating, she’s tried her hand at working as a Library Assistant and teaching summer school at an exclusive private school in Oakland, California. She dreams of exploring the world and hopes to find her place in it eventually, whether it be in writing, editing, law, or something she has yet to dream up.
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When I arrived in the first country for the project, Guatemala, I stayed in the home of a former student activist, congressman and architect, now retired. Cesar’s grandson Marco Antonio picked me up at the airport, and, over Johnnie Walked Red, the three of us spent the night talking about the historic 1954 CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. Marco took me out to the countryside, where he is a teacher and we hung out with one of his friends. This is my conversation with his educator friend, Fabio an extroverted young man in his twenties.
BG: Okay. What do you know about 1954? Jacobo Árbenz.
(Guatemalan president overthrown by the United States in 1954.)
What do I know? He was overthrown by the American CIA. He was labeled a communist. Because he wanted to make some reforms.
BG: Was there truth to that? Was he a communist?
No, he wasn’t. The Americans were very nervous about the Soviet Union and the ideas of Marx. They were trying to use communism as an excuse to keep control of many countries in Latin America. That’s what I think.
BG: You can say both were real, there was genuine hysteria, paranoia, fear of the Soviet Union, communist China, Stalin, Mao, Eastern Europe.
I think American society was entitled to be paranoid to a certain degree, but in Latin America that was used as an excuse, again, to be in control of the region. I don’t know if you remember McCarthy?
BG: Sure.
He was talking about the domino effect, if one country fell down, then the next one, and so on.
BG: The domino theory.
Yes. But I don’t think Árbenz was a communist, or Allende in Chile.
(Salvador Allende, the first Marxist to be elected president in free elections in Latin America. Elected 1970, overthrown in a 1973 CIA-supported coup.)
BG: What do you think is the line between being a communist and having some communists in your political coalition or legislature, or pushing for long overdue reforms? The Spanish oligarchy controlling the economy for decades or centuries…
Historically, what we have in Guatemala is a situation in which a minority controls the majority. The wealthy class controls the working class. That is the situation in this country, but every time the working class wants to see changes in society, they always label us. Drug gangs, terrorists.
BG: It’s a convenient way for…
…to get rid of certain people.
BG: Even Obama is called a socialist. Compared to who?
No way!I don’t think he’s even close.
BG: But these words are used to paralyze public discourse. Instead of debating how we affect healthcare reform, well, he’s socialist.
Two things, if the working class is in charge of making changes, the first thing that they probably will change is healthcare for everybody and education free for everybody. And that’s Marxism.
BG: Well, it’s what some Marxist countries have as a priority. I don’t think that’s Marxism though.
The working class being in control of the–
BG: Being in control, that part. But free education and healthcare? Is that socialism?
That’s a little bit. More Marxism than… But Sweden has both things. Free healthcare and free education. And they are capitalist.
BG: That’s right. A lot of Americans think that ensuring good health care for people and good education is a priority. A lot of Americans think that no, that’s socialism. You’re taking my money, my taxes. I want to lower my taxes, not raise them. Take my money so that some other kid can get good education or healthcare? That’s socialism. This is a significant political view in the United States.
I think that this is like a, how do you say, Obama… I used to have friends from Austria talking about Obama, good things about him. One of his attributes is basically that he is a well articulated person. He can explain things carefully and clearly. But he fails many times because he cannot explain the important things to the American community.
BG: I think that’s true.
People don’t want to be labeled as whatever, communist for instance. So they have to clarify. This is what I am offering, it has nothing to do with being a socialist. He has failed to distance himself from labels, philosophies, or ideologies, I don’t know.
BG: If I can ask, how old are you?
I don’t answer that.
BG: (Laughter.) Okay, you don’t have to answer that. As you were growing up, learning about what happened in 1954, and then seeing the civil war or reading about it, how did you feel about the United States as you heard those things?
I think that it’s a process because it takes time to… As you have more details and more details, you start putting everything together. All the pieces. It fits in time. But I think the American goal was really bad, you know? If you were in school here, you probably would understand what I’m talking about. Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the elections and he was actually dealing with the Iranians. They were using Iranians to pass weapons to the Contras.
BG: Illegally.
And also they paid the Iranians to keep the American hostages a little bit longer. Yeah, check that.
BG: I’ve been reading about that lately.
Bill Moyers discusses that in one of his documentaries.
BG: They paid or made certain promises.
No, they were payments.
BG: I have heard that. I love Bill Moyers.
So the Americans came. I think that the agreement… He asked for a favor, if they could maintain the hostages a little bit longer, until after –
BG: The Iranians hated Carter because of the Shah.
(The Carter administration seemed to be complicit with the Shah, who came to the United States for medical treatment after being overthrown in 1979. Carter toasted him on television.)
They wanted to portray Ronald Reagan as a powerful guy, that he is not negotiating with terrorists.
BG: He did negotiate with terrorists, more than once.
Yeah, he did! But they were saying, no, he’s not negotiating with terrorists.
BG: So during the civil war, were you aware that the United States government, particularly during the Reagan administration, was supporting Guatemala’s military dictatorship? What was your attitude about that?
We didn’t know that until we were much older Because that’s part of our history and at that time we weren’t sure. Instead of saying, “You guys have a threat of communism in the area. We are going to help you to eradicate that problem.”
BG: That was the justification.
Yeah, but the money was used to maintain the status quo, to maintain the rich families in power, and keep the military strong.
BG: Did you know any people who were kidnapped, or tortured, or killed?
Just one. He was an old guy. He was kidnapped and killed. Apparently he was associated with a Catholic group.
BG: Catholic?
They say that sometimes the Catholics were indoctrinating.
BG: (It’s estimated that) US-backed military dictators in your country, over time, killed 200,000 people.
Now, they (former political leaders) are using that as justification. Yes, people were brutalized and really badly tortured in Latin America, But you know what? We didn’t do it. It was our military, when it was in Guatemala, Chile, or Argentina. It was the military. We were not involved in that. We weren’t physically there.
BG: The political leaders are saying that it was the military?
Yes. The Americans weren’t involved. You were not doing it. It was the Guatemalans in control of the wrong paramilitary groups, of which there were many. Or, in Latin America as well, we weren’t there. It’s like saying that Hitler is innocent because he wasn’t in Treblinka or Auschwitz. He wasn’t there physically, yeah, but he was the mastermind. The point that I am trying to make is that Ronald Reagan, he was the mastermind behind that machinery.
BG: What do you think was going through Reagan’s mind when he was supporting these brutal dictators?
I think he was really scared during the missile crisis in Cuba. Americans were very scared. We have nuclear weapons, they are no longer in Russia, they are in Cuba. And this is how many miles out of the United States?
BG: 90 miles from Miami.
Suddenly, they can nuke us. And that’s the thing that really scares me. And after Vietnam? Wow.
BG: Yeah, we can lose.
There was a certain degree of paranoia among the military. Among the politicians in the United States. It probably was related to the right wing. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.
BG: What’s happening now in Guatemalan politics?
I am totally disconnected from Guatemalan politics. I read the New York Times, La Stampa Italiana. I only read news from other countries.
(Laughter.)
I was trying to be in tune with the Guatemalan congressmen who were opposed (to legislation supporting privatization of seeds for) Monsanto.
BG: I heard that today, yeah.
And they decided to go in favor of Monsanto. Something that was really disappointing. In part because they don’t even know what the hell is going on. Because they don’t have the education. They don’t understand our genetics in a way. It’s frustrating. But I am totally disconnected from American politics, too. I don’t understand anymore what’s going on and I have no interest.
“Why do you think, as a seasoned political veteran, that the United States needed to maintain the justification that the action was needed to defend the freedom and security of the Guatemalan people, and keep out communism?”
He considers my question, then responds.
“The first reason was the economic interests they had in Central America. Guatemala was the most important. Shell, all the gas companies, car companies…we only had American cars, Chevrolet, Ford. Also because of the business that they had with the politicians. And because of the wood that they took out of the country. Everything was sold in the United States. After the English left the region, then all the wood went to the United States through Belize.
“You have agricultural products produced with poorly paid laborers. They right now buy a hundred pounds of coffee for a hundred dollars. They sell a cup of coffee in your country at four dollars. You can get fifty cups from one pound. So there would be two hundred dollars revenue for one pound. And then the people with the crops have to pay poor wages to their workers. So the war was between the owners of the land and the workers, because they were not paying good salaries. And, then, anyone who protested was called a communist.”
Gonzalez pauses. “Some people say 250,000 people were killed. I know of 175,000, and from that 6,000 were killed by the guerrillas, and the rest by the Army.
“People were not allowed to organize themselves. They were trying to form unions. The military started killing the students from the national university, San Carlos, the one you were at yesterday, and that’s why the students joined the guerrillas. While they talked about freedom of the press, in one year, nine radio journalists were killed.
“Rios Montt killed 16,000 in one year. That’s why they supported him. He wiped out small villages.”
I mentioned that I talked to someone who said that Rios Montt was innocent, that he had no blood on his hands. The former General and President was convicted last year of genocide and crimes against humanity. His conviction was overturned by a Guatemalan court.
Gonzalez laughed grimly. “Even though he was being judged in Spain. By a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Instead of being in jail, he is at home, but he cannot go out of the country. There is another case involving the killing of 280 adults and kids.”
I ask, “It sounds like there may be two interpretations of the communism issue. One was that the Soviet Union was going to come into our backyard, that there might be another Cuban missile crisis. But you are saying that the real issue regarding communism is the resistance to any changes in the economic environment that would affect profits of domestic and multinational companies.”
Gonzales explains, “Communism did not prosper in Guatemala. What matters here is money, capital.”
I mention that, after a US arms sales embargo to Guatemala, Arbenz bought weapons from communist Czechoslovakia. Gonzales responds, that, when he was a child, all the weapons he saw were made in the U.S.
I ask, “Am I to understand if this is all about money, that all the talk about ideology is bullshit?”
“It is because of the power the U.S. had on all of our countries. When you opened the archives, you could find the history there.”
I respond, “The Freedom of Information Act. Yes, ‘Bitter Fruit’ co-author Stephen Schlesinger forced the United States government to open many of those archives.
“Your father was very close to Arbenz. If it’s not too sensitive to ask, can you tell me about your father and brother? What stories do you remember your father telling you about Arbenz at that time?”
“That Jacobo Arbenz was a righteous person. My father was a loved leader, loved by a lot of people. There are a lot of people that say he was more loved than Jacobo Arbenz. And they were afraid that he was going to be in politics and again in the government. There was a list of politicians at that time and they started killing them. That way, they killed the leaders. My brother joined a strong man, Manuel Colon Marietta, the uncle of the last president, Colon. Manuel Colon Marietta went against the military directly. The military government killed my father and killed Marietta. When Arana was president, a colonel, they say that he killed 25,000 people during his government.”
“When you look today at United States actions in the Middle East, does any of that look familiar to you?”
“It’s the same tactic, but now they are at war for petroleum. It’s not the U.S., but the individual politicians. Because that’s the way they control the world, with oil, and that can take us to a Third World War. But now the countries have atomic bombs. And the one that throws the first one will be followed by others.”
“So the George W. Bush claim that it is freedom and democracy which motivated the US in Iraq is not persuasive to you?”
He laughs heartily.
“Iraqis tell me there is so much oil in Iraq, you can see it seep from the ground.”
“If you were President of the United States, how would you change the way the country behaves on the world stage?”
“They have to defend the position they have as being the most powerful country. In that way, they need to have their people inside our countries. They won two world wars. The Cold War was in order to remove all the leaders that they didn’t want, who were opposing them.”
I ask, “American thinkers like Kagan and Wolfowitz and Kristol say America has a moral obligation to bring freedom to the people of the world. Therefore we need a large military, and we need to be aggressive, with preemptive wars if necessary. What do you think of that idea?”
Gonzalez answers, “Look what they did with Saddam Hussein. They didn’t find any WMD. There is no excuse. They are focused on being the owners of the land. Of the whole world.”
“But I asked YOU if YOU were the President of the U.S., with all the knowledge and wisdom and experience that you have, what would you do differently?”
“In the first place, I’m not American.”
I smiled and exclaimed, “We can change the law! I’m speaking from a moral point of view, obviously.”
Julio smiles. “You can conquer the world with love and not by force.”
Julio Gonzalez Gamarra, Vice President and Deputy of the Parlamento Centroamericano, head of the monetary and finance committee, former president of the Parliament, settles into his seat at the head of the conference table. Carmen Aida, daughter of Cesar, will translate for us.
“Why do you think Arbenz was overthrown?”
Julio is dressed formally, in a brown suit and matching tie. He considers the question, sizing me up. He is a statesman, and a seasoned veteran of both Guatemalan and Central American politics. He measures his words carefully.
Carmen Aida, says, “OK, he is going to tell you.”
“I’m going to tell you first who I am.”
I ask him to tell me if any of the questions are too sensitive, if he would rather not answer.
He answers, “No, for me, it is fine. First, I am going to show you this picture. This is Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, ex-president of Guatemala. And this on the right is Juan Jose Arevalo and this in the center is my father. My father was the second most important person in Guatemala at this time. Humberto Gonzalez Juarez. He started the first radio station in Guatemala. At this moment, we have 65 radio stations. My father started the station that became the large group that exists today. Then, my father was the secretary, at this time the only secretary to the president.
“When I was in the Congress in 1994, we made a resolution saying these men were heroes in Guatemala. My family was exiled and went to Uruguay and Mexico for five years. My father had permission from the next president to return, but with the condition that he not get into politics. In the seventies, they killed my father. In the nineties, they killed my brother. That’s why I started in politics. If somebody knows the real truth, it is me.”
Julio looks again at the picture.
“The United States conducted a coup. And for three reasons.
“One was because of the agrarian land reform. With the land that was unused from the United Fruit Company.
“The only road that we had was the road to the Pacific. And all the Pacific coast was controlled by the United Fruit Company. One of its associates was the Secretary of State under Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, and his brother was CIA head Allen Dulles.”
I mention the Stephen Kinzer book, “The Brothers.” He is familiar with it but has not read it. I tell him he must read it and it is likely available in Spanish.
“There was an ambassador here, Peurifoy, and he was the contact with Foster Dulles. That’s one reason.
“Second. The railroad. Owned by the same group. United Fruit. When Arbenz was going to build the road to the Atlantic, then people were not going to use the railroad anymore. United Fruit didn’t want the road to the Atlantic built.
“And the third was the hydroelectric dam project. They were in opposition to the project. For the agrarian reform, there were like 25-30 rich families in Guatemala, very strong and allied with U.S capital. The government didn’t touch their land. Only the land that was not being used, which they offered to pay for. That land was to be distributed to 100,000 families.
“There was a group of Guatemalans who were not happy with the U.S. invasion. The U.S. had people in Honduras prepared to attack Guatemala, and they came every night with guns and bombs. The driver of the invasion was Foster Dulles supported by the President of the United States. The Arbenz government provided education with no cost and opened schools in the mountains and all over Guatemala. That was the more aggressive effort, education. But people, and especially the U.S., wanted to continue having slaves.”
I press the issue further. “With respect, the U.S. narrative in 1954 was that the CIA invaded to keep out godless Soviet communism. You’ve not mentioned this as a reason thus far, only economic reasons.”
He laughs.
“Guatemala already had a communist party that never had been in the government. It was very small.
I ask if he heard that Dulles sent a message through Peurifoy to Arbenz that the U.S. wanted no communists in the national life of the country, not the government, not the party.
“We already had a democracy in Guatemala because we had thrown out a dictator that we had for 23 years. Jorge Ubico. When they threw out Ubico, they gave participation to all the sectors. That was in 1945, when they came into the government. The revolution was in October of 1944.”
I ask, is there a link from the overthrow of Arbenz to the thirty-five years of civil war?
He gestures, “Definitely. The Army colonels were paid by the United States with ten thousand dollars per month. They were very well paid so they wouldn’t let in any communists.”
Each? (I had heard it was two thousand per month). Ten thousand per month? Yes, he answers. I exclaim, “Very nice!” We laugh.
“That is a secret. But everybody knows it. And they did that in all of Central America. They put a base in Honduras.
“After Arbenz, they went to the Dominican Republic to throw out their president. In Guatemala, the civil war was for thirty-six years. Then they started killing people who didn’t think the same as them. The guerrillas started because a group of young military officers went to the mountains.”
I ask, “So these are not communists, these are military men who were upset at the takeover of their country?”
“Yeah, that’s it. They were patriots who didn’t like what was going on.”
Part Two of the interview will be posted tomorrow.
Week One in Guatemala. A big success on a few fronts. Extraordinary encounters with prominent and everyday witnesses to the overthrow and civil war. Getting the recording tools and publishing process down. Making the travel process more efficient.
Traveling by bus across Guatemala to Livingston today, a 5-6 hour trip. I’ll be reviewing and transcribing the hours of interviews on the bus. Week one is on-budget, with travel, lodging, food and incidentals coming in under $60 per day. I am adjusting to the joys and challenges of near constant travel. My biggest adjustments so far are balancing time spent on logistics versus hunting down interviews versus writing, editing and posting. I’ve focused on gathering the content and now need to focus on pushing out a consistent volume and quality of posts.
Some of the week’s highlights:
Creating a spontaneous social network here via introductions from my airbnb hosts. Intros beget more contacts beget encounters with remarkable people.
Speaking to classes in the rural town of Santa Lucia, getting stories and political perspectives from middle schoolers. Experiencing both the frightening innocence with which they relate tales of horror from the civil war, and the passion with which they question the motives of American intervention. Going to the market to buy provisions for a spontaneous BBQ and sharing food and drink with teachers and neighbors.
Visiting the Universidade de San Carlos, scenes of student protests through the coup and civil war years. Successive military governments invaded the school and shot teachers and students on campus. The military and the campus were primary sources of guerrillas who left their lives behind and moved to the mountains to oppose the government. Talking to prominent historian and professor Dr. Oscar Pelaez Almengor about the conflicts and the killing of three of his faculty. The mural honors the victims. Cesar, my host, a former congressman and architect, was friends with the fellow painted on the left. Almengor organized the first ever conference on the Arbenz overthrow last year and gifted me with a program.
Visiting the Parliamento Centro Americano to meet with Julio Gonzalez Gamarra, former head and current deputy of the EU-like regional assembly. The picture we are holding is of Jacobo Arbenz on the left, the president deposed in the 1954 CIA coup, Juan Jose Arevalo, the first democratically elected president on the right, and his father in the middle. Humberto Gonzalez Juarez was Arbenz’ secretary, his right hand man. A widely loved national figure who had to escape the country with his family when Arbenz was overthrown. When he returned in the sixties, he was assassinated by the government. Humberto’s son, Julio’s brother, entered politics and was killed by the military in the seventies. Julio entered politics to honor and continue the legacy of his family. The two hour conversation took a dramatic change in tone when the conversation shifted to his father’s story. At the end, when I asked for other contacts, he paused for a long while and began to instruct his secretary and peruse his phone. There will be a meeting of past and present Central American presidents in the Parliamento later this month and he said he would invite me to attend and get more interviews.
Visiting the ASIES policy institute and getting fresh historical insights from Hugo Novales, who wrote his thesis on the life of Arevalo. Hugo was the only interview in English, and as a younger man, provided a more contemporary perspective.
A surreal, amusing and poignant evening chat with politician, preacher and businessman Jorge Fuentes, who swept things off the table and leapt out of his chair for dramatic effect, waved his arms to make key points and diagrammed Guatemalan politics in my notebook. He also wrote down the personal email and cell phone number of his uncle, a former president, who I will contact for an interview.
Coming back from Santa Lucia, teacher Marco Antonio had his mother’s friend Wilma meet me in a dirt lot at 6:45am to catch a bus to Guate (Guatemalan City). She led me around like a little boy with a backpack, holding my hand, sharing treats out of her bag, paying for my bus ticket and wiping away seeds spilled on my book. The bus, a brightly painted, decades old blue Bird school bus, broke down on the highway en route. And we were entertained by a preacher who spontaneously got up in front of my seat, pulled out a bible, then closed his eyes and recited verses for us.
LiAnne is on my case for not posting regularly. Consider me chastened! I have reams of notes and recordings and intend to use this first regional tour to lock down process and style.
Thanks to all the Kickstarter pledgers. We are approaching 40% of the way there after the first 10 days. The Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia legs of the trip will rely on funding the $10,000 goal. Pledge now! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wartheafterparty/war-the-afterparty
I’m sure I can’t rely on serendipity and chance encounters as a way to harvest interviews and information during the Afterparty world tour, but so far it’s been a fascinating ride. A risky assumption of the project is that food and lodging and even transport costs can be kept low with a combination of web services like airbnb and couchsurfing, and the Kindness of Strangers.
My host in Guatemala City is Cesar, and his grandson Marco coordinates the airbnb listing. He picked me up at the airport, sat with me and Cesar as we discussed the 1954 overthrow, and is now taking me to Santa Lucia to speak to his middle school class.
We chose not to go out to dinner and head straight to the bus terminal. Much of the country is suffering from a dry spell, with farmers losing crops and farm laborers losing work. But here, nonstop big ole buckets of water splashing everywhere. We are traveling to Santa Lucia. I’ll talk to his classes about the Afterparty project and they’ll tell me about their family experiences in the civil war.
Marco and I had to make a split second decision between the more traditional Forteleza bus and the colorful but bumpy chicken buses. He reminded me that I was on an adventure, but when I asked him the difference in cost, he answered, “About the same.” So I went for the Forteleza.
I already had my chicken bus adventure and would soon have another one. The reason why the brightly painted buses look so familiar is that I probably rode them when I went to high school 40 years ago. They are converted Blue Bird school buses and the ancient English language emergency signs reveal their origins.
Marco points out scenery along the way, including the location of his family’s lakeside home. I decided to take my fully loaded backpack and separate daypack filled with my books and writing materials. I chose to wear my flip flops, against grandma Carmen’s advice, and stuffed my Ecco tennis shoes in the outside pocket of the backpack. The bus cashier walks back to me with my right sneaker in his hand. “I think this is yours,” he says.
Marco says we really should have taken the other bus because this one drops us off in the middle of nowhere. He predicts the walk to the house is a half hour. It’s now dark and raining. It’s the first test of my waterproof REI backpack.
We walk off the main road to a darker, wetter side road. The shoulder is asphalt then mud then foliage. My flip flops are starting to slip and slide. And Marco, who ran the Guatemala City Marathon in the morning, and is 30 years my junior, is outpacing me. Every once in a while, he turns to asks, “Is that a bus?” Apparently he intends to flag one down in the middle of the road in the driving rain. That requires turning around every minute or so to track the oncoming vehicles, which slows us down. Finally, a highly unlikely event – a massive tractor trailer slows and stops for us. We get in. The driver says nothing. I can’t see his face. He lets us off in town and then we’re home after a five minute slog through the mud.
We meet up with Marco’s energetic housemate Flavio, and I introduce the Afterparty project. He repeats a theme I’m hearing a lot these past few days. You are America. You are big. You can do what you want. Marco Antonio Sr. said the same earlier in the day, and saw it as the natural order of things, though chastised us for our moral hypocrisy. His politics are right wing, and he thinks the leftists want another Cuba in Guatemala. “Really?” I ask. “They really want to emulate Cuba as a model?” He thinks so. (His brother Cesar Jr. vehemently disagrees but we will get to him in another post.)
Flavio thinks America will do what it takes to protect its multi-national companies. Marco Sr. wants America’s helping hand but believes it always comes with conditions, those conditions being economic dependence and political servitude. Marco mixes some rum and fruit drinks and we talk into the night.
I am awakened by rooster crowing at 1:40am. Then a cacophony of dogs barking. Then, at 6:30am, we’re on our way to the campus.
I’m compiling the recordings and photos from the encounter with the middle school kids. As early teens, their primary view of the USA brand is much more about fashion and tech and pop culture than CIA covert action and civil war. But they have harrowing stories from their relatives.
One girl’s grandma had two of her sons forcibly taken from their village to be trained as guerrilla fighters. One jumped out of the truck trying to escape and died in the act.
Another girl calmly describes how her grandfather was a large plantation owner and military officer. He had to “kill all the people” but her grandmother said it was necessary.
Marco asks for questions and Lisbeth, first to raise her hand and enthralled throughout, asks, in a fierce tone, “How would you like it if we Guatemalans went to America and created a civil war in your country?”
A boy asks why the CIA was so interested in his country in 1954?
Different generations, different social classes, different ethnic groups bear witness in their own ways to their nation’s legacy of violence,from the civil war to the overthrow to a century of muscular control by two dozen families and to their forebears, the conquistadors.
In the next post, I’ll tell you about the chicken bus ride back to Guatemala City with Marco’s mother’s friend Wilma, and the breakdown of the bus en route. With a short video of the Squinty Chicken Bus Preacher Man who chose to evangelize the gospel to the passengers from my seat.
Brian Gruber is an author, writing coach, and marketing consultant living on the Thai island of Koh Phangan. He has spent 40 years studying, leading, and founding new media companies and projects.
